Radio on: A Listener's Diary

by Sarah Vowell

A self-proclaimed member of Generation X examines what is on the radio day-by-day and how she as an audience interacts with it from morning to night, in a car, at home, and in the office

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Music, Memoir, Humor, History, Pop Culture

234 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Sarah Jane Vowell (MA, Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1999; BA, Modern Languages and Literature, Montana State University, 1993) is a historian, journalist, essayist, social commentator, and actress. She has written seven nonfiction books on American history and culture. Vowell was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996 to 2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries. She was also the voice of the teenage superhero Violet Parr in the 2004 animated film The Incredibles and its 2018 sequel.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally worked my way backward to Sarah Vowell's first published book, "Radio On: A Listener's Diary," written when she was in her mid-20s. It is, literally, a diary: a near-daily recounting of her reactions to what she listened to on the radio--top 40, talk, drivetime, alternative, country, religion, farm reports, underground, NPR, 20-watt college stations--during 1995.

Naturally, a lot of what she listened to was news and opinion, and as an aside, I was struck by the political similarities between 1995 (the Clinton administration and the rise of Newt Gingrich and a Republican Congress) and today (the Obama administration and the McConnell/Ryan Congress). But back to the book:

Of all Sarah Vowell's books, this might be the one I most favor. It is, certainly, the most personal, the most unpolished, the most honest. I too have lived with radio as a constant backdrop, and I too have pondered the importance of radio in our lives. I'm considerably older than Sarah and never listened to the music she favors, but her diary compelled me to get on YouTube and listen to several of the artists and tracks she mentioned as being important in her life. I was a long-time listener and fan of NPR, Garrison Keillor, and Car Talk, only later in life growing weary of the repetitive blandness; Sarah disliked and distrusted the whole crew from the get-go. Starting into her diary my thought was "Okay, we'll agree to disagree"; by the end, it was "I quite see your point."

As I said in a review of one of her later histories, I'll read anything Sarah Vowell writes. I feel I know her better after reading "Radio On," and that was more than worth the experience.

[Andtruth Danielson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The remarkable thing about this book, for Sarah Vowell fans, is that it takes place during a pivotal year of her life, and she spends a lot of time unhappily thrashing about for new opportunities. The subject is radio in 1995, but the central character is her, and the most interesting aspect is the colliision between 1995 pop culture and her professional worries and personal opinions. I'm not sure how enjoyable this book would be for people who don't like the author or don't remember the year 1995 vividly like I do, but I thought it was one of her most unique books; more free-flowing than her essays and travelogues, but an unexpected storyline emerges, a story of the kind that I believe only happens to people when they're in their mid-twenties and life changes on them. The way she hates Garrison Keillor and Linda Werthimer at the beginning of the book is nicely ironic, and an entry in November where she sits in on the editing of a new show called "This American Life" is downright Anakin Skywalkeresque. The other highlight is her account of a radio special on Kurt Cobain's death--the special is lame, but her attempts to wring meaning from it are extremely touching (especially when she drags out a quote from an account of a depression in Wisconsin from her metaphor-obsessed mind.) This is not a teenage Sarah Vowell like some of the other reviews claim; this is a mid-twenties Sarah Vowell, and for people who want to explore what that's like, this is the book.

[Seth · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 1995, when Sarah Vowell wrote Radio On, she was a 25-year-old, urban art student fresh out of an immersion in college radio. In 1995, I was a 21-year-old, urban art student still immersed in college radio. Not surprisingly, then and now I mostly agree with the opinions she expresses about things political, social, and musical.

I mention this just to shore myself up a little before summarily dismissing her memoir as a relentlessly whiny bit of cynical petulance. Vowell writes with the assured sense of superiority that can only come from a twenty-something, specifically a twenty-something what we'd now call "hipster" but in '95 I guess we called "indie kid." Everyone but Sarah, it seems, is wrong about journalism, about art, about government, and you'd better fucking well believe they're wrong about what records to listen to.

To be fair, Radio On does precisely capture what it was like being a cynical indie kid in the world of 1995. I was one of them. But that just means the book is one long eye roll, and 17 years later it feels as irrelevant as a freshman term paper.

[Bryce Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I do whenever she has a new book coming out I'm busy rereading the collected work of Sarah Vowel. She's has one of my favorite voices period, warm, funny, intelligent, confidential, conversational, and occasionally scathing.

That being said as of Radio On she hadn't quite got it right. Not that she had it wrong, she always had her knack for seeing beauty in strange places, humor where there seems little chance to find it, and a keen sense of how pop culture and history shape our lives.

It's just all a little off, the tone is for lack of a better word, too damn bitchy, the voice is too impressed with it's own intelligent, it's generation X in it's worst most navel gazingly self satisfied.

Imagine if you will that Reality Bites wrote a book.

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have an ex who, at least while we were dating and before then, LOVED Sarah Vowell. When I asked said literate then-boyfriend for a list of books I should read, of course he included her. I know her from her segments on This American Life; sometimes I like them and sometimes I don't, so I'm not sure what to expect from this book.

...Yeah, this sounds exactly like one of her pieces for This American Life: somewhat funny, some good one-liners, an insightful way of describing things, but...I don't know. Get to it faster? Try less to make your witty metaphors? Whatever it is that bothers me about her radio pieces is here, too.

I also find the book extremely dated: it's not so much about listening to the radio, but about listening to the radio in 1995. She carries a Nirvana / Kurt-just-died-woe-is-us theme through the book, and often quotes the hateful talk radio (by the way, I like to read because it's NOT hateful talk radio) that was going on then... not much different from today, actually. And it just all went on for WAY too long.

By the way, when did the diary format become a thing in book writing? Granted, this book is 20 (!) years old, so it's not like it's part of a *recent* trend, but still... Radio On, The Year of Living Biblically, The Know-It-All, So Many Books, So Little Time, Nick Hornby's book recommendation books...

There's perhaps some irony that Vowell expresses these feelings for Garrison Keillor: "I know people who love this man....Why, why, why do I hate him so? Hate every breath he draws, every last tinkle of every last ivory he sings over? Garrison Keillor, obviously adored by thousands, rubs me raw." Yeah, I know how that feels.

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting reading Radio On after having read more of Vowell's later works first--I can see glimpses of her writing voice and sense of humour that become stronger in her later works. I didn't love the book, and it's definitely not my favourite of her works, but I liked the concept of viewing the year through the lens of what's on the radio.

[Matthew Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is oddly personal and strangely impersonal all at once. It is both a pre-internet time capsule that only hints at a world of radio podcasts and "no-license broadcast" technologies, and an eternally relevant commentary on radio's (and music's) power no mater what time period or emotional state we're in. And it's as awkward and goofy and deadeningly cynical as it is honest and thoughtful and perfectly pessimistic. Vowell can share with us her fears about politics and art and other select segments of her life, but like someone randomly spinning the dial on a radio, there's a lot that we just don't hear. This can make for some disjointed reading, a narrative that might be followed for a few days before seeming to disappear amid more random radio reflections. That's not necessarily a failing of the book - it is ultimately all about her radio listenings and less about her - but it's just a comment on an acceptably incomplete autobiography. Ultimately, her thoughts on a year of tuning in are a scary and simultaneously quaint look back at the 90s, it's political and musical movers and shakers, that made me feel like our current world is only marginally more insane than hers was 10 or 15 years ago. If nothing else, reading this book made me think about how I engage with the voices coming in over the air, be it news, music, or other. And if it can make me do that, and even spin the dial a few notches to venture into new aural landscapes, that's a good thing, and worth reading for.

But for the record, she's totally wrong about Garrison Keillor. So, so wrong.

[Maija · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't love this book. I found the diary format kind of rambling and disorienting. And, at times she complains a lot about NPR which I thought was fun as I have always associated her as NPR.

What I did love was remembering this year in my life (1995) as it was probably one of the last years I really listened to the radio. I remember driving home from dropping off a video (not a DVD!) at the video store and hearing about Kurt Cobain's death on 107.7 (The End). I remember seeing Courtney Love at Lollapalooza. I remember the radio meaning so much to me, a teen in a small rural town, it was my connection to the big city (Seattle, at the time). It was pre-internet days, so before myspace, facebook, etc, the radio was how I knew about new music. I also spent a LOT of time in my car driving around, so the radio was my companion then (one thing I miss as a bicycle commuter is the radio).

It was also an interesting look back at politics in the mid-90's when Clinton was still our hero, Newt was our punching bag, and the federal government shut down several times when the budget couldn't be balanced. Finishing this right before the elections, it made me wonder what lies ahead in the Obama years, as there is always this push-pull between liberalism and conservatism in our country.

[Sarah Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I saw Sarah Vowell read in Pittsburgh a few years ago, somebody asked her during the Q&A about this book, and she made disparaging comments. She said it was unfocused and vitriolic and kind of cringe-inducing. Essentially, it's a diary of every little bit of radio Vowell listened to in 1994--the heady times of Rush Limbaugh and "the Republican Revolution" and O.J. and Newt. And Kurt and Courtney. I guess Rush Limbaugh had incited this new wave of radio listening through his shit-mongering, and Vowell's panic is palpable at every turn. Hindsight being what it is, her alarm seems kind of quaint. To say the least.

But Vowell is one of those essayists I read for company. I'm interested in what she has to say about pretty much anything--Hank Williams, the big-scale stupidity of a rock and roll hall of fame in a clinically modern I.M. Pei facade, the slickity-doo-da of corporate radio. I was 11 in 1994, and while I didn't yet have all my critical tools in place, it was kind of my first year to participate in culture-at-large, or at least the first year I felt that way, and this book is a time capsule with all of the names and noteworthies, some so small and almost charming in the current context.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Sarah Vowell, but this really is a bad book. Whiny, unfocused, sophomoric, and (worst) unthoughtful. She is definitely angry throughout the book, and occasionally that can be engaging if you agree (especially about Rush Limbaugh), but mainly she's dismissive, which does not make for entertaining reading. Pick up any of her other books--or start with "Shooting Dad" or the story where Ira Glass tries to teach her how to drive--and the feel is completely different. In those stories, and in all of her other books, she can see herself and the other people at the same time, with the same critical (and appreciative, and sympathetic, and humorous) eye. The main feeling I get from this book is how much she hated writing this book. Whether or not that was really true doesn't matter. Read any and all of her other books first.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.danscanon.com/2020/03/radi...

[Michael Fredette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Vowell’s first book, Radio On (it takes its title from the Modern Lovers’s song “Roadrunner”), is a diary of radio listening in 1995. She logs countless hours listening to NPR, Q101 (Chicago’s big market alternative rock radio station), right wing talk shows, Mancow, Howard Stern (the latter two to a lesser extent). She is an ardent Nirvana and Hole fan, but hates most of the newer crop of “alt rock” artists then emergent. Alanis Morissette is “whiny,” “whiny,” “whining,” “overrated,” and “over analyzed.” Sheryl Crow is “ditsy.” Hootie & the Blowfish are “crud.” Stone Temple Pilots elicit a parenthetical “Good God!” She makes the dubious assertion that Nirvana “kicked Mariah Carey” off the airwaves(what?) and that Smashing Pumpkins are better than Michael Bolton (the latter claim I’ll begrudgingly concede.) She visits the Q 101 studio and walks by framed gold records from Nirvana, They Might Be Giants, & Meat Puppets (the Meat Puppets had a Gold Record?!). The studio is not equipped with a turntable, oddly enough. A Q 101 radio personality announces he is leaving to take a job with Rolling Stone and a caller (Todd), berates him for being a “sellout.” (A term that got thrown around a lot in the’90s). Vowell also listens to Rush Limbaugh and analyzes the content of his shows, almost literally ad nauseam. Howard Stern, (wrongly) predicts Limbaugh’s imminent and precipitous decline into irrelevance. Meanwhile, the news of the day was dominated by the partial government shutdown, the Unabomber, Bosnia, the OJ trial, the emergent American right wing movement lead by Newt Gingrich. For Vowell, her year of radio listening was a season in Hell, however entertainingly narrated.

[Elizabeth Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Unfamiliar Fishes, I purchased a variety of Sarah Vowell books and have decided to start in year published order. Radio On is Vowell's personal diary of listening to the radio (nearly) every day in 1995. It is an impersonal meets personal account of a medium that has changed significantly since Radio On was published. Vowell's account model can be applied to television and social media. Although I imagine anyone who would choose to venture down that road would find themselves more exhausted than Vowell at the road's end.

This book provided me a unique perspective on a year of my youth. It was a history lesson of which I lived through without an adult's perspective. Throughout, I could not help, but find that so much has not changed in our current political climate. History really does repeat itself.

In December, Vowell opens the chapter with the following quote "A good radio program deserves the same critical attention as a good book or a good film... With an analysis of radio, the serious criticism of broadcasting could being, and with it, the serious reforms." - R. Murray Schafer

Radio On is not for everyone and will resonate with each reader on a different level depending on their personal experiences and their personal musical preferences in 1995, but I think everyone could start paying critical attention to their televisions, radios and phone screens.

Lesson learned, Vowell... lesson learned.

[CF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Radio On: A Listener's Diary, is a time capsule from 1995 that is more or less political and slightly musical. I adore Sarah Vowell and respect that her first novel is being written when in her mid twenties and just out of school. Had I dared to be that focused at that age, it might have lead me to be writing critical reviews of the sound waves but even her ambitious twenties, like most of us, was lacking refinement.
Though intelligently opinionated, there is a place where this book falls short. I'm not sure if it's flatness is more about my expectations of learning more about the pre-internet world of radio of someone who was so closely in tune with it or was it the sense that the politically charged 1995 election couldn't help but take center stage. It feels dated and fragmented but there are hints of magic in there which are very valuable and relevant in our technology saturated lives.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting trip down memory lane for me - I was living in Milwaukee as a college freshman and sophomore during 1995, with a summer at home in Iowa in-between. Some of the news events Vowell mentions were on my radar, but most weren't. All of the "alternative rock" stations were in constant rotation for me, plus healthy doses of NPR during any time spent with my parents. In contrast to Vowell's impressions, though, I love all of the NPR voices from that period of time, so she can keep her snide comments on them to herself. :-)

As a book, this is not nearly as polished as Vowell's other work, but one can see her future style in development. I'm amazed she was able to get this published at all at age 25 - imagine the hutzpah it took to even propose it.

Borrowed from MM during isolation.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Vowell AND Radio from the mid 90s - hard to really go wrong with that combination! With Ms. Vowell's typical acerbic wit she pens her musings on radio listening for one year - in SF, Chicago, NY and Montana. She drops some classic NPR names (Ira Glass, Nina Totenberg), thinks back fondly on Kurt Cobain and voices her dislike of the Grateful Dead (on the occasion of Jerry Garcia's death no less). This book was really evocative of a time when I too listened to the radio quite a bit. What is most frightening is that after all the years that have passed so much is still the same. Impeachment. Rush Limbaugh. Newt Gingrich and of course Ira Glass.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly enjoyable, and quick to devour. Vowell's engagement with a handful of broadcasting-oriented theorists such as R. Murray Schafer and Allen S. Weiss is of particular surprise and enjoyment (we felt the same way about Phantasmic Radio). A nearly ethnographic view of the production of an early episode of This American Life is another fabulous morsel. Certainly a useful tool for students within media studies or media anthropology disciplines to reference towards a fieldwork of broadcasting and aural transmissions.

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sarah Vowell is my favorite non-fiction author, but this was pretty difficult for me to get through. It did contain some gems, but I thought about quitting it at least a dozen times. What was interesting for me, was the snapshots it called to mind of living through this period of time in the 90's, and adding a little clarity to some of my memories since I was still too young at the time to really have that much understanding of/interest in the big news items that were happening.

[Peggy Daub · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually enjoy Sarah Vowell's writing, but this one just wasn't a good match for my interests. Who would love it -- someone who knows a lot more about alternative rock in the 1990s than I do. There were so many references to bands and songs I didn't know that I wandered along half lost through much of her musings on what radio was offering throughout 1995. And by the end of this listener's diary, the diarist herself had become exhausted by her project.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love radio and I love Sarah Vowell. There are very very short essays in this book on every possible aspect of radio programming and recording, plus all the wonderful tangents that happen in Vowell's mind as she becomes more and more heard on the radio herself... and now, of course in podcasts.

I'd recommend this book also to people who don't listen to radio - radio is after all, just a big podcast where you used to not be able to listen to things when you chose to.

[Vic S-F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love anything Sarah Vowell, but this one definitely reads like a bunch of bits of college essays. It's both heartening and depressing to hear her reflections on the traps of political mass culture from twenty years out. Definitely some gems in here, wish I'd got the audiobook, cue up a long playlist before you settle in with this one.

[Phungo2008 Ember · Rating 5 out of 5]

more of a 4.5 but either GR won't allow that or my fingers are fat.

I would love a follow up on this to see what all the folks mentioned are up to now.

did not agree with Vowell on a lot of music stuff, but loved her gusto.

lots of Nirvana coverage, as this is fairly close to Kurt Cobain's death.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Vowell is easily one of my favourite writers. Reading her books is like having a long coffee date with an old friend. Radio On was a great trip down memory lane for me, taking me back through my 20s and re-introducing me to bands I had somehow forgotten over the years. Another great read.

[Tom Hart · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad for giving such a superior author such an inferior rating, but Vowell's done much stronger, funnier, and more insightful work. Had I read this immediately after publication I would have enjoyed it more.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just plain got tired of the snark by page 174 and put it down for a while. I tried to pick it up again but just couldn't. Don't judge her other books by this one. It's definitely an outlier. I guess there's a reason I had to work to find it. Wish I hadn't.

[Tarita Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's a bit dated, but Sarah's wit and humor are evident. I admire her dedication in listening to the radio for a full year for the book.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have loved Sarah's other books. This one did not speak to me.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a relatively recent convert to Vowellism and a lifelong fan of good (but especially bad) radio, I was excited to read this book. It did not disappoint.

[Nate Hendrix · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like it I did not finish it. I have loved all her other books. The Wordy Shipmates was not my favorite, but then how entertaining can one make Puritans?

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. From an Okie in Muskogee to PJ Harvey and lots of Rush in between. I enjoyed pulling up old favorites - Hole and finding new ones. Sarah Vowell keep on rocking in the free world.